


let's hope for some

by earnmysong



Category: Actor RPF
Genre: Awards Season, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-03
Updated: 2013-02-03
Packaged: 2017-11-28 02:02:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/668997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/earnmysong/pseuds/earnmysong
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>All Jen wants at the moment is to lie down somewhere and die.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	let's hope for some

**Author's Note:**

  * For [catteo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/catteo/gifts), [leobrat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/leobrat/gifts), [petragem](https://archiveofourown.org/users/petragem/gifts).



> Notes: Written for the _Ho Hey_ challenge over @ nothing_hip. This fic is 666 words – is that the universe’s way of telling me I shouldn’t want this to happen? (AO3 says it's 665 but, whatever, the sentiment still holds.) SORRY, I STILL DO. This goes without saying, but: The people are real; the events, not so much.

\----

All Jen wants at the moment is to lie down somewhere and die. A quick glance around the table makes the world spin so much she has to close her eyes against the movement, but it also tells her that everyone is happily engaged in conversation with a person other than her. This is her _small but distinct window of opportunity_ and she’s definitely not passing it up. 

Dropping her head to the linen-covered surface in front of her, her cheek brushes a champagne flute, the glass cool against her skin. _Real classy, Jen_ , she thinks, sure she looks like the maid of honor at Ben’s wedding – the poor girl had been drunk off her ass and had ended up snoring her way through half of the reception – but she’s too zoned out to care. 

\----

“Jen,” a voice calls a while later, her name somewhat muffled by the haze that is her brain tonight. She snaps to attention immediately, knocking the drink she’d been resting against onto the carpet in her haste. Too late, it dawns on her that her mother isn’t sitting next to her and, therefore, could not have been trying to get her attention to admonish her for acting unladylike. She’s twenty-two, sure, but mothers have an innate ability to strike fear into hearts at any age.

“Shit,” she breathes, looking in the direction of the spill wistfully, unable to make her body follow the unspoken order to deal with her lack of coordination.

“I got it,” Bradley assures, fingers grazing her shoulder before he kneels, dabbing at the spreading stain, collecting the fragmented shards of glass in a napkin. When he resumes his seat, he touches her cheek, frowns. “You okay?”

“Couldn’t be bet-” He tilts his head slightly, calls her bluff. “Fine. I’m pretty sure I’m dying, which is awesome.” He smiles sympathetically, moves a piece of hair that’s fallen out of her twist off her face. “I can see it now,” she starts, her tone moving into a newscaster’s cadence before she continues. “Oscar-nominated starlet Jennifer Lawrence dies of pneumonia following awards ceremony. Has a nice ring to it, huh?”

“Not dramatic enough,” he teases, sliding his dessert toward her. She shakes her head at the plate, passes it back. “Turning down eclairs? Now there’s a headline.”

\----

Jen wakes up the next morning to the shrieking of her smoke alarm. She spends a minute trying to remember what, if anything, she left running that could have burst into flames. (Her hair dryer likes to spark every twenty uses or so, just to keep life interesting and scare the shit out of her.) Coming up empty, she shuffles toward the noise to investigate.

Bradley is standing at her sink, gazing down at its contents in horror. Standing on a chair, she jabs at the plastic disc with her Swiffer until it dies and the room is blissfully silent.

“Hey?” she says, both a greeting and a question, as she climbs down, walks over to join him in staring at the ruins of what was once her tea kettle. She’s never actually used it, but she’s not telling him that. 

“Hey.” He turns to face her, looks at her in a way that makes her face go warm. Thank God she can blame it on her fever. “You sounded horrible when we got back here last night, I couldn’t find your inhaler, and your mom was already back at the hotel. I slept on the couch.” He waves his hand in the air, smiles sheepishly. “Wanted to make sure you were alright.”

“Thanks,” she breathes. They stand like that for a minute, can’t seem to find the words to segue into another topic. Finally, Jen bounces on the balls of her feet, expelling her nervous energy, and gestures to the smoking mass of metal they’d both forgotten. “I didn’t know you were a tea guy.”

“I’m not.” The words carry far more meaning than any two words have a right to.


End file.
